Steam BETA Nears End
rizzuh @ 2:09 pm pdt - cstrike pc - 15 comments - new!
VALVe Software's public Steam BETA test, which allowed anyone to play the Half-Life family of games for free, is drawing to an end, says Erik Johnson on the Steam forums.
The next major release of Steam will be the first step towards converting the entire Half-Life user base to Steam. This means that we will be resetting the Steam account database from scratch. After this, you will need to have a valid CD-Key to access games via Steam, so you will want to treat your Steam account as permanent. One CD-Key will grant you access to all of the games currently available in the Steam beta. The Friends database will remain intact, so if you create an account with the same name when the beta ends, you will retain your Friends list.

The next step will be to release the remaining three Half-Life 2 movies, fix the remaining issues with the Riot Shield in Counter-Strike, and any remaining issues with Steam. This will happen almost immediately after the Steam beta ends.
In addition to all of this, some major features have been announced to come after the Steam BETA completes its run:
» New version of Cobble reworked by David Johnston.
» Full Skin support in Steam.
» More detailed information regarding the cache file on your drive.
» Vastly more efficient use of disk space and bandwidth in Steam.
» New conversion wizard to make better use of existing content on your drive.
Keep in mind that Steam does not mean Counter-Strike 1.6. CS 1.6 could still be ways off, but the content delivery program called Steam is nearing completion.

Steam is VALVe's method of online game distribution. Using Steam, developers can cut out publishers from the release process; which means developers will be able to take in more profits and have more control over the game itself.

Either Counter-Strike: Condition Zero or Half-Life 2 will be the first retail game sold over the Steam platform.

this is good news. i believe that remark about how two weeks from when steam beta ends there will be a patch to convert everyone is when 1.6 will go official. when you think about it this isnt a bad move. since everyone will be on steam they can still fix any bugs/balance issues after the official 1.6. In my mind this move shoes that valve is nearly prepared to release cz as well as hl2.
Yes, yes, i know ive been playing along to whatever valve tells me for a while, but i'd like to believe this is a good step toward release.